Upcoming Events

Date: 12:00pm EDT April 3, 2015

New Morse Code, Cello & Percussion

As part of its FREE 12@Hotchkiss Series, the Washington College Department of Music presents New Morse Code, featuring Cello and Percussion.

New Morse Code is devoted to bold and engaging performances of music worth sharing. Omnivorous, rigorous and inventive, Hannah Collins and Michael Compitello activate the unexpected range and unique sonic world of cello and percussion to catalyze and champion the compelling works of young composers.

To Hannah and Michael, collaboration involves drawing upon mutual influences while generating and refining material together over an extended period of time. Through close work with colleagues such as pianist-composer Paul Kerekes, steel pan virtuoso and composer Andy Akiho, Hawaiian composer and visual artist Tonia Ko, and Pulitzer Prize-winning violinist/vocalist/composer Caroline Shaw, New Morse Code generates a singular and personal repertoire which reflects both their friends’ creative voices and their own perspectives. Current projects include collaborations with composers Samuel Carl Adams, Matthew Barnson, Patrick van Deurzen, Stephen Gorbos, and Robert Honstein.

In addition to developing new repertoire for concert programs, New Morse Code also creates music for larger interdisciplinary projects. In 2012, New Morse Code worked with a team of artistic collaborators from the Yale Schools of Music and Drama to create Basement Hades: Songs of the Underworld, a contemporary retelling of the Orpheus myth which blurs the boundaries between concert, play and multimedia event, and was hailed as “stunningly moving” by the New Haven Review. More theater projects are currently in development with playwright Justin Taylor, composer Kevin Clark, and documentarian/composer George Lam.

Through its outreach initiative New Morse Kids, the duo has inspired young listeners with eye-opening performances and engaging presentations at the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, Yale’s Morse Summer Music Academy, the ARTS Experience Festival at Hobart and William Smith Colleges, and the Educational Center for the Arts in New Haven.

Michael Compitello is the Director of Percussion at Cornell University where he directs the Cornell Steel Band and a West African dance-drumming ensemble.

Hannah Collins performs and teaches in New York City as a member of Ensemble ACJW and a fellow of the Academy, a program of Carnegie Hall, the Juilliard School, and the Weill Music Institute, in partnership with the NYC Dept. of Education.